


What Fun Winter Brings

by Neverlong



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/M, Fluff, bc that’s just how those magic beans be, but then i actually started writing, just some pure fluff here, originally was supposed to be romanticy conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 02:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverlong/pseuds/Neverlong
Summary: Five times Agnieszka threw snowballs at Sarkan, and the one time he fights back.





	What Fun Winter Brings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silverscream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverscream/gifts).



Her first attempt to catch him proved unfruitful. She knew his routine, as scheduled as he ever was, but her throw missed its mark.

Sarkan glared at the tree first, as if it had bothered him by making noise. Then his eyes turned up to the snowbank above him, the top of the hill that Agnieszka had made into her fortress through careful packing of snow. The disgust in his gaze was enough to send her laughing, falling over her piles of snow even if she hadn’t hit him.

It hadn’t been as much of a failure as she’d thought, but she hadn’t accomplished her goal. No matter. She wasn’t patient, but she would see this through out of spite, if she needed.

She was going to get a snowball fight with him this winter.

—

The next time they met, Nieszka had to fight off a smile as he hurled barbed words at her. It was so typical. She was standing outside her parents’ house, beating out the dirt from the floor mats, when he approached her. Although she could feel the dirt burrowing into her skirts (something else so typical), she didn’t halt her chore work.

“It’s called _having_ _fun_. You wouldn’t have heard of it,” she pointedly stated, “but that’s what _normal_ people do.”

She watched his mouth open, but didn’t let him speak. “You’re the one who came down here, Sarkan. You should enjoy yourself a little.”

“You expect me to dirty myself like a simpleton with no—“

“ _Yes_.” She set the metal beater down, “You never know, you might actually find something other than dusty books and priggish rules to like.”

Sarkan scoffed at the very idea, ever the prickly thorn bush she’d met him as. Despite his seeking her out at the harvest festival, he’d remained as separate from her family and neighbors as ever.

“Agnieszka, are you done out there?” She watched the Dragon stiffen at the sound of her mother’s voice: guilt still caused his eyes to dart from the mention of her presence. In time, she was sure he would become softer, or at least more subdued towards her family.

Of course, he hadn’t to her. His vitriol was like ash blown at her feet instead of the heated flames she’d once seen them as. Maybe that was maturity on her part, but she felt more certain that it was more because she’d seen the kindness he was capable of.

She bent over to pick up the beater again, yet at the last moment—!

Another near hit. This snowball swept past his shoulder, just brushing the lapel of his ungodly complicated coat and leaving a powdery trail across it.

He stormed off in time for Agnieszka’s mother to walk out and check on her rug.

—

She was with Kasia, similarly visiting their Dvernik for the winter holidays, when she caught sight of Sarkan through a patchwork of tree trunks.

Kasia watched her friend scoop snow perched on a branched root, knowing exactly what she had planned.

“Why do you have to always antagonize him, Nieszka?”

“Haven’t you heard him? _Everything_ I do antagonizes him.” Kasia stifled a reedy laugh, although it still echoed through her a little like the sound of crickets in hollow trees. Sarkan didn’t take notice, which was the most important thing.

This time, Agnieszka aimed and struck true. Sarkan jerked forward at the impact, his gloved fingers combing through the powdered snow in his hair.

His shoulders tensed to hear the sound of his lover belly laughing through the trees, the winter birds chirping along with her. When he twisted to look over his shoulder at her, she crouched down and left Kasia unprotected.

Kasia waved. Sarkan immediately began his ceaseless twittering, about _cantrips_ and _useless_ , _simple_ _joking_ and _can’t_ _you_ _ever_ _be_ _a_ _reasonable_ _human_ _being_ _instead_ _of_ _an_ _idiotic_ _excuse_ _for_ _a_ _witch_.

Kasia folded her fingers at him, creaking as she looked down at Agnieszka, who was still coming down from the glorious satisfaction of having hit him.

Step one was completed. Now she just needed to wear him down until he finally caved. This was a war of attrition, and she intended to win.

—

Sarkan had become vigilant in avoiding Agnieszka. Which was...counterintuitive, if he were honest. He had come to Dvernik under the guise of collecting taxes, sure. But he knew his own motives, and he suspected Agnieszka did as well.

His tower had been broken, ruined. Books and manuscripts, priceless potions and histories—all left to rot under the touch of nature. He’d tried to run from Polnya, too. It wasn’t as if anyone could keep him from it.

But that was wrong. Though Agnieszka hadn’t spoken to him in months, he’d felt himself aching to hear her defensive remarks. He’d even found that he _missed_ the way her dresses attracted grime and muck.

She had ruined him for the rest of his long and miserable life, and so he’d returned to see her and ensure that hers lasted just as his. He had wanted to see her, to be with her. The roots he had never needed, never wanted—the enduring war he fought his entire life—he had finally lost.

“Sarkan!” She called, causing him to turn so that he could reprimand her for being so loud—

His cheek met the brunt of the freezing snow. It curdled in the embroidery of his coat, leaving him fuming and furious.

“You’re such an insufferable idiot, you wretched—“

“If you’d throw just one snowball back, I’d stop!” Why wouldn’t she ever let him finish what he was saying! She’d grown much more impatient since he’d seen her before the harvest (if that were _possible_ ), and refused to let him finish a sentence without bursting into fiery laughter or interrupting with her voice.

“I would die before succumbing to such immature notions, even though you seem perfectly inept at them.”

“Inept!” Ah, he’d hit something with that one.

“You missed the first two times, if you’re too simple to recall. Your aim is as good as your magic: abysmally useless.”

“Take that back, you overbearing miser!” She twisted her hands, whispering words that sounded like ice and crystallized in the air.

Immediately, he was on guard. Throwing another quip or two at her, he watched a distorted snowball appear in her hands and snorted. _Cantrips_. And she couldn’t even manage that.

This time, he was prepared when she threw the snowball. His ducking, along with her poor aim, had it flying high over his head.

His mouth formed words as he recalled them, drawing from his _dusty_ _books_ to create a snowstorm centered over Agnieszka’s head. The snow around their clearing lifted into the air and became vapor. Clouds swirled and crashed into one another darkly, but he kept it contained just a few lengths above her head.

Her eyes were wide, even as her hair frizzed beneath the changing pressure. Sarkan ordered the snow to fall, and it dropped from the clouds as a blizzard sped through time.

He heard her yelp, from the cold he was sure, as she was buried beneath the fallen piles of snow. A foot poked out there, and her face was buried when she fell over from the force. She pressed her fingers into the snow to pick herself back up, always the resilient fighter.

But she wasn’t fighting yet. She was _grinning_.

Her hands balled the snow, and she threw it once she sat up. Why did she look so smug?

“I win.” And it was poetic, maybe, that Sarkan wholeheartedly agreed with her.

Not that he’d ever admit it, as he scooped up some snow and simply poured it over her mussed hair to get her to _shut up._


End file.
